A Study of the Dramatic Roles of Women in Richard III Essays -- five f

There ar five female characters in the stage Richard III. Of these five there argon four central female characters the Duchess of York, Richards mother Anne who later becomes Richards wife fay Margaret who was the former queen and Richards arch enemy and sissy Elizabeth, the current queen. The last(a) female character who plays a minor berth in the play is Queen Elizabeths daughter, Elizabeth, but she is merely a pawn in Richards aim and we never visualise her. Each woman has a significant component in Richard III and is vital to the script. Anne is the first female character that we meet in the text (act 1 scene 2), which is where she is wooed by the ultimate villain in the play, Richard. Anne has just lost her husband and is wallowing in self-pity when Richard appears. Anne is a unguarded and weak character throughout the play although she appears bold and vengeful at the beginning of this scene, trying to disarm Richard with words, Dos t grant me, hedgehog? Then divinity grant me too/Thou mayst be damned for that wicked exercise Anne is confused and emotionally unstable which makes her more susceptible to Richards charms. Annes dramatic role in the play is to reveal Richards actor to charm and manipulate which he does exceptionally. Although the audience know of his true intentions and that he does not plan to keep her long we are glad that he has succeeded because he is the typical villain that we love to hate, although Anne must be corrupt to succumb to him and his charms. He admits that he killed her husband and her father-in-law Nay, do not pause for I did kill King Henry/ exclusively twas thy beauty that provoked me/twas I ... ...use they have all been victims of King Richard and eventually realise that they have to support each other because they have no-one else. Queen Elizabeth asks Queen Margaret for instructions in cursing O thou well happy in curses, stay a while/And t each me how to curse mine enemies which I believe is her way of saying sorry and treating her as an equal. The women in this play are vital to the script and although they have no power whatsoever in this play, without them neither would Richard. Part of each of the female characters role was to show that in their era it was the men that held the power and the women were entirely uneffective which Shakespeare presented superbly.Works CitedShakespeare, William. Richard III. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. (New York W.W. Norton and Company, 1997), 515-600.